Stars
by meowsaysthetardis
Summary: "You've never looked this sad before." "I've never been this sad before." Stars is a simple oneshot about Clara Oswald and the Eleventh Doctor sharing a moment in his bedroom where she shows she knows his true character and where he learns more about the universe from a human girl than anyone else. Rated T.


**A/N: Hello and thank you for clicking on this story, I hope you enjoy it. If you do I'd really appreciate a favourite or a review. Thank you!**

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_How could anyone sleep in this room? _She used to wonder, eyes wide as she stared at purple, pink, blue, yellow, and white, all forming the galaxy around her. How could he concentrate on slumber with the entire universe seemingly at his fingertips?

The first time she came in this room had been only months ago, and she had danced about, peering at sparkling planets, shining stars, expanding nebulae, and collapsing black-holes. Each time she would go to touch a star, the star would explode and send ripples of light across the room that would, in turn, bounce off the walls and surround her with more light than before. It had been amazing, and she supposed it still was, just _different_. She was different, and he was different as well.

That first night had been one of exploration, where they danced among the stars and he had whispered something to her about how he wanted to eventually show her all of them. _Every single star_, if he could, even the ones that had already died out. She'd be the first human in all of time and space who had ever gotten to see them all. And there was one star, by a large planet, that seemed so small, and so dull in comparison. She remembered leaving his arms to go toward the star and pretend she was holding it in the palm of her hand.

"We'll save this one for last," she told him softly, but with wonder and amazement in her voice.

"Why?"

"Because, it's going to outshine all of the others one day."

He had laughed at that and had taken her by the waist telling her, "Of course it will." Then he kissed her on the forehead, and she melted into his touch more than she normally did.

He was always so calm about touching her, and kissing her forehead, and allowing her to lay next to him, but never once would he touch her lips with his. At times, she would wonder if there was something wrong with her, but it was in moments where they were in his bedroom, looking at the galaxy and talking about simple things that she would forget about the fact that he didn't love her. He saw companionship this way. She would close her heart to him as much as she could, and yet every time he gave her a gaze in this room, whatever seal she had put there would break open and she would automatically go to him like a moth to the flame. Love was a terrible thing, especially when she was in love with a man who was more impossible than herself.

The days they saw each other became scarce for a good three months, but it was more her fault than his. She gained a job as a teacher and lost interest in things like stars as her life moved forward. When he returned to her one Wednesday she did not expect to go on the adventure of a lifetime, to meet all of the Doctor though, as she looked upon the faces of the Doctor's past self she could not help but feel something in her gut, as if she had seen them before. Had she? And if she had would he ever tell her the truth? Clara knew the Doctor lied, but he never told her about Trenzalore and what really happened, he just told her that she saved him with a message and that was all. She hated him for it, not true hate, but she wished she could know the truth; what had she done to save him? Why was it so important for her to not remember?

After the events of that day occurred, Clara had retreated to the TARDIS alone. It hurt that he didn't want her there by the painting, by his side, but she knew that was his past a past she wished he would tell her more of but doubted he ever would. He came in through the doors of the TARDIS after a long while and she had poured herself a cup of tea and sat upon the stairs where he often liked to read. Her gaze lifted from her tea cup to meet his and he looked different somehow, more sad and run down. That bow tie of his seemed a bit looser than before, a little bit crooked, and his shoulders sagged, and although he was smiling at her, she could see his eyes sparkling with something much different than happiness. The Doctor didn't cry, but it looked like he was going to. Anyone would cry if they had just rewritten everything about themselves, changed their past whenever they weren't supposed to. And only he could know the real truth behind it now, his past selves wouldn't remember or know that he had saved his planet. So Clara sat down her tea cup, still half full of steaming chamomile, and went to him. He was beginning to push buttons and flick switches, but her hands slid over his to still his movements.

"No, I don't want to go back yet, it can wait," her voice was kind and gentle and he looked at her with those same eyes of shining sadness that hurt her heart.

"Don't you? Or are you still here for the cocktails on the moon?" Another smile slid across his lips, it didn't seem as strained as the one before, but it didn't distract from his eyes like how he probably wanted it to.

"Oh, definitely still here for the cocktails," she joked, echoing his smile, going to move her hands away from his, but just as she went to move away, he caught one of her hands in his own.

"It's been a long day," he stated, his voice a bit darker than it normally was. She'd heard this tone before, and it hinted at the fact that he'd want her to go with him to his bedroom. She wondered if he found security in the universe staring at him.

"It has been."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I am, but if you're asking me then that means you are too."

He nodded and she wrapped her fingers around his. Instead of asking, talking about where they were going, they simply began to walk together down the halls of the TARDIS toward his room. It was a silent agreement between two people who understood each other better than it seemed. As soon as they entered, the universe lit up around them, but Clara didn't even take the time to look around. Her general interest in the universe was suddenly gone because of the Doctor's sadness and her own need to know all she didn't. She let go of his hand and closed the door to the room, when she turned back to face him, he was already undoing his bow tie and allowing it to fall to the ground in a lonely heap, he was then pulling off his long coat, tossing it over the end of the bed. Next, he slowly took out his watch from his waistcoat pocket and sat it gently on his bedside table. She enjoyed watching his movements as he dressed down, they were gentle and yet held a certain power that no one she knew could match. It wasn't until he had unbuttoned and put away his waistcoat and boots that he came over to her and pressed his hand against her cheek. She looked up at him and only then realised that she had been crossing her arms and that she had begun to watch the floor instead of him.

"You look sad," he stated, his brows pushed into a line, as if she didn't have any reason to be sad and as if her sadness were the biggest question of the day.

"So do you," she replied, slowly uncrossing her arms and lifting a hand to press it against his cheek as well. "_Always_."

"Not always," he responded, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "I can't look sad always."

"You're right, sometimes you're not, but whenever we come in here, it's because you're sad."

Whatever small smile had started to form now fell, and he bowed his head down, his hand falling from her cheek, and her hand falling from his.

"You've never looked this sad before, though," she began to reach a hand out toward him again, going to take him in her arms, or push that floppy mess of hair away from his face, but she placed it back along her side, unsure if she should bother in touching him. Sometimes physical contact was not what someone needed.

"I've never been this sad," was his soft, broken reply. It surprised her that he was even telling her of his sadness, that he was allowing her to know. Whatever had occurred on this day would be something that would scar him for the rest of his life if he was truly this upset. With her surprise, her mouth opened a bit and compassion flushed into her system. It wasn't until he looked up at her with reddening eyes that her heart truly broke for him and she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him securely. He was crying, and the Doctor crying meant that he needed her more than ever.

"Shh," she cooed at him, stroking his hair and allowing him to press his head down into her shoulder. His knees gave first, and soon they were on the ground. Though he stayed in her arms loosely, she propped herself up stronger. She couldn't allow herself to cry with him, these tears were his own that needed to be lived out. "Everything's going to be alright, we'll make the sadness go away together."

"But don't you see that it never goes away, Clara? It never does and it never will." His words were so out of character, so not like him, though maybe this was the real Doctor, how he truly was to those he trusted.

"You're right, sadness doesn't ever go away," she stated. He knew that she knew what the truths of the world were and that she knew what sadness was like, that she had experienced it, and maybe he just needed to relearn the cycle of it. "And so I'll tell you a story, I'll tell you the truth of sadness. The truth is that sadness builds and builds until one day you let it all out to someone you don't really trust, but they're the only person there for you. So you let them know why you're sad, and you don't stop crying for a long time and then once you do stop crying, and once the person leaves, you're empty. You don't feel better, you just feel like everything is gone and the sadness rebuilds itself. Because sadness is something that every creature feels, it's always there, even when you're happy, sadness is there. But you, Doctor, you don't recognise that sadness is something you feel, and that's why whenever things like this happen and you feel it and allow yourself to feel it you feel so hurt. You can't hide sadness away, you have to know its there and accept it as part of who you are. Especially if you're over one thousand years old and have experienced more sadness than almost any other being in this universe." At some point during her story, he removed his head from her shoulder and looked at her. She didn't know if she was right about anything she was saying, but she hoped she was. She wanted the Doctor to learn from her and to feel like he could trust her. And so she decided, that although he was crying and although her words may have sounded too all knowing, to continue on.

"Look at the universe," she told him, looking at the sparkling display around them for herself. "You have it right here in your room. Now think about all of the people and planets you've saved. Think about all the sadness you have, and then think about all the happiness you've given to other people. You may be hurt, but think about the good that came from what you thought to be the destruction of your own planet. The Time War ceased and you told yourself you were alone, didn't you? But tell me this, have you really ever been alone? Whenever you're here in this room, you're not alone. You're with all of the people you saved even with sacrifice. And now you know that you never killed anyone. Instead you saved even more people "

"It makes me selfish, then, everything I did was for selfish reasons," was his interjection and she simply shook her head and continued to speak.

"No, everything you did was not selfish. Everything you did was for good, because you, Doctor, are a wonderful man and though you do things to get your way, and manipulate people, and lose your temper, you still do things for the good of the universe. And it's in times where the sadness is too much that you have to realise all of the good you've done and how selfless you really are."

He didn't respond to her, and she didn't need him to, she took her arms away from him and stood up from the ground. She looked around at the planets until her eyes fell upon the large planet she had once seen all of those nights ago. It now had a star next to it that wasn't merely a dully lit dot, but was shining so brilliantly that it was hard to miss. She walked gently toward it. "You see this star here? I told you it would outshine all the others. And if you hadn't saved all the things you have, this star wouldn't even exist. That's how wonderful you are, you've saved all of the stars, even the brightest of them all." She then turned to look at him, and he had stood up and was walking toward her now. He was no longer crying and he softly cupped both of her cheeks, pressing a kiss to her forehead. Despite his mood, she pulled back from him, and shook her head, walking to another point in the room that was a safe distance from him. She couldn't let herself fall in love with him again, especially not whenever they were both in pain.

"Clara, you talk like that all of the time. You know so much, but you don't follow your own advice. You already know why I'm sad, but I have no idea why you are." He sounded like he actually wanted to know, but she wouldn't be fooled.

"You've no idea because you don't care to know. Everyone around you always needs to be happy while they're with you or else you get upset and you never care about the emotions of those closest to you anyways. Or maybe you just don't recognise them just like you don't recognise your own emotions." What she was saying wasn't meant to be mean, but she knew it was the truth so it probably came off that way.

"No, no, no. Of course I care about them, why wouldn't I?" She could hear his voice getting closer to her, but she refused to turn around.

"I don't know why you wouldn't, but you try to be more than you are a lot of the time too. And you … Doctor if you cared about me you would have told me about Trenzalore by now."

A dark silence followed that sentence. One that showed she needed to know and that it was time for him to tell her. She could hear him swallow, "Clara, look at me." His voice was commanding and so she decided to turn, she bit her bottom lip as soon as she saw his face. "I'll tell you what happened, but you're going to be hurt afterward, and you'll probably remember everything. All the pain you felt will come back to you and I won't be able to take it away."

So he was protecting her by not telling her, and this made her feel awful, but also want to know even more. "Tell me, I need to know, I need to know how I saved you."

It was clear he didn't want to, and even though his resignation was obvious, he went on to tell her of the day they went to Trenzalore. "We went into my grave and it began to mess with your head because one day we traveled and had a whole day of our lives erased. The memories were coming back to you even though they only existed outside of time. Already, you were being affected by time and I couldn't help you, you were remembering all sorts of things, memories that hadn't happened and memories that were going to happen. At one point we made it to my timestream. Time Lords don't have bodies, bodies are just too boring, our entire lives live on as a stream of events in a contained mass. A being named the Great Intelligence entered my timestream and purposefully meddled with everything I had ever done so I would be destroyed. He disrupted my whole timeline and then was torn apart by time and was eliminated. I began to die at different parts in time all across my timeline, and my whole existence was burning. I didn't really know what was happening at the time, but you went in, and I tried to stop you I did, but you went in anyways and saved me. You got yourself split across time to fix everything that the Great Intelligence had ruined. And so I came into my own timestream and got you out just before you were destroyed, and you collapsed as soon as we were going to get leave. It didn't surprise me you could hardly - "

" - I couldn't remember who I was. I didn't feel real. I wasn't just one person anymore. I was hundreds of people, all with different personalities but the same face and the same name. And I - " Her head was swirling, the words coming to her mouth automatically. Every time she blinked pieces of memory were being restored, though there were still blanks, but she could at least picture clearly one single event; hearing his voice telling her that he was real and that she was his impossible girl and taking her in his arms. "What does it mean to you?"

"What does what mean to me?" He asked, confusion clear in his voice, as well as worry.

"Me being your impossible girl. You never told me what it meant. You said you would explain it later but you never did." He was silent and was staring at her and so she screamed, "Tell me!"

"It means you shouldn't exist. No one like you should exist for someone like me," he replied softly.

"Someone like you? You act as if no one wants to be with you, as if I need to be the special one who was made for you, as if you're a commodity that no one wants. But you're wrong, plenty of people like me exist for people like you and plenty of people like me want to be with you. Go on a travel alone and you'll find someone else just like me, but I'll never find anyone like you. No one who can make me feel like how you do, and no matter what I do you'll never care." She was standing in the same place for too long and she didn't want to stay in this room with him and the universe trying to distract her. "But you're important, Doctor, you matter. And you know that you do. I think that's what gets me the most you always try to get people to tell you how important you are whenever you already know it. You play God by keeping things from people without giving them a choice. You're a wonderful, terrible person and you don't care about the people who care about you more than anyone else."

She went to leave, then, beginning a brisk walk toward the door, but was stopped halfway because his hand wrapped around her wrist. "Are you telling me I don't care about you?" Instead of saying anything she let out a sob. "Because I do care about you, I want to protect you."

"I don't want to be protected! I want to be treated like I can do anything that you can do." The devastation in her voice was clear, and she was trying not to cry.

"But you can do so much more and you're telling me all of these things about myself, but you're not admitting to how great you are as well. And you aren't even admitting to your own manipulation right now. You wouldn't be talking to me about this if I wasn't already upset and you know you wouldn't be," he told her calmly.

He was right, of course he was.

"So tell me what you really want, Clara, if you don't want protection."

With as rough a movement as she could manage, she ripped her wrist from his grip and went to the door, her hand went for the handle, but she didn't turn it and she rested her forehead against the door. "I want you to love me. I want you to love me and you never will."

Everything became silent again. It was uncomfortable and her heart was beating fast, tears were running down her face. She was so much more than this, so much more than romance, but she had allowed the Doctor to get to her. Not once had she ever fallen in love, and maybe that was why she was like this with him. She was manipulating the situation, though, she had turned this from being about his pain to being about hers and she felt terrible about it.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said any of this, I'm going to my room."

"No," he commanded, and his voice conquered her exasperation and desire to leave. She could hear his footsteps coming near her and then his hands were on her waist. She swallowed and he was turning her around to look at him. They stayed like that for a moment, her back pressed against the door and his hands on her waist. There was only a small bit of space between them before he closed it by tilting his head to the side and leaning down, trapping her lips in his. Automatically her arms went up and wrapped around the back of his neck and she leaned into the kiss. Warmth spread all across her body, even to the tips of her toes, and her eyes fluttered shut. Their lips moved together for a while, and it wasn't clean or perfect. Their noses bumped on each other's faces and their mouths missed each other's sometimes, and both of their breaths were heavy and hot. Each time one of them went to pull away the other would pull them back in with another disorganised kiss. It wasn't until she couldn't breathe anymore that she truly forced herself to stop kissing him. Whenever she went to connect eyes with him again, she wanted to press her lips to his again and again, but she knew she couldn't.

"Do you still have to go back to your room?" He asked with a smile on his face. She shook her head and he took her in his arms and laid her on his bed. He hovered over her and kissed her again and again like how she desired. At some point he'd gone to remove her dress, but she had stopped him. Then, soon after that, she found herself yawning in between kisses. It wasn't that she was bored, but she was so worn out that she found herself almost falling asleep. So they then laid next to one another, the blankets of the bed over them, their legs intertwined and his arm lazily swung over her. She was not facing him, but was instead looking the opposite way, staring at the planet that rotated in front of her. She was happy, or felt happy, but she was also still sad because she wasn't sure if he truly loved her or if the kisses had been that of more manipulation.

She was close to falling asleep but she found herself attempting to talk to him about something normal and simple as to still her mind.

"Do you dream?" She asked.

"Of course I dream," he told her, "Everybody dreams."

"But what do you dream about?"

"The same thing everybody dreams about, I dream about where I'm going."

For some reason she found that funny and a small laugh left her lips. "But you're not going anywhere, you're just wandering about."

"That's not true anymore … Will you come with me where I'm going?"

"It depends where are you going?" Though she would travel with him as long as he wanted her to.

"I'm going home."

"You mean to Gallifrey?"

"Yes."

"I'll go with you till there isn't anywhere left to go," she promised, before sleep finally took hold of her and she drifted into dreams of seeing the stars and finding the Doctor's home.


End file.
